A haze of days

Three big days are ahead.
Today we are the venue for a post-funeral gathering - tea, coffee, scones, cake, strawberries.
Tomorrow afternoon a Three Choirs Festival concert is being held in the Church. It's a sell out. We have  pre- and post-concert bookings.
Then on Saturday it's our second wedding of the the season.
I have to make 50 meringues.
(Whisked egg whites. Not dresses.)

Institute Invasion

How wrong can one person be?
I thought this morning would follow the same pattern as the previous few - a slow start and a busy lunchtime and afternoon.
But at 11am three ladies came in and ordered cream teas. The scones were still cooling from the oven.
Two more ladies, two more cream teas.
The WI members were coming in force, they told me, and the scones didn't stand a chance.
And they kept coming.
In the midst of their staggered arrival came a large extended family for coffees, milk shakes and cakes.
By 1130 the conservatory was full.
And most of the day's scones were eaten.

The rest of the day reverted to type.

Inconceivable

Today I found a used condom in the disabled loo.
This posed many more questions than it answered.

For the Present

We have entered a new era.
Until today when on the odd occasion I was asked for a Gift Voucher for use at the tea rooms I'd go home, mock one up on the computer and print it off. It worked well for the few times they were needed.
Since the beginning of this season, though, I have noticed a definite increase in demand. Sometimes we're asked for them by visitors, sometimes people call and order them by 'phone.
I began to feel a bit silly nipping home to the printer.
So I have taken a big step.
I've had some made.
We now have Garden Tea Rooms £5 and £10 Vouchers.
They've arrived today from the printers.
Now all I need is some envelopes.

Ice cream barometer

On Tuesday morning I went to the local dairy to collect extra ice cream and fruit ice lollies.
Yesterday my usual weekly delivery came, enhanced by a few boxes because we're selling so much.
This morning I am having to visit the dairy again.
This is a proper heat wave.

Going red.

A two-course lunch for 41 U3A members booked for today meant we had to take all the tables out of the conservatory into the garden to accommodate them.
There wasn't any chance of anyone eating inside the conservatory in which we could currently bake jacket potatoes and fry eggs if we so wished.
Inside the kitchen it's even worse. We are all a little over warm.

The two courses were a choice of our homecooked ham or our fresh tomato & pecorino quiche, then a choice of Witley strawberries & raspberries or apple shortcake.
The Witley strawberries made their appearance just in time.
I need many more for the wedding next Saturday.
Better get ripening fellas...

Sweet

It's harvest time in the village. Sort of.
We are brought boxes and punnets and jars of things by friends, neighbours and customers with a surplus.
Peter brings gooseberries and raspberries and we share them among us and carry them home. Jocelyn takes the empty jam jars from us (such a lot of jam used for the cream teas) and returns with grape jelly, red currant jelly, chutney....
Then on Sunday Ann arrived with an armful of courgettes, perfect to add to our soup and roasted vegetable panini.
She also offered us loganberries. The last of their crop, she said.
A basket of them duly arrived.
Last night I made loganberry jam, the first jam I have ever made.
It was remarkably satisfying.
I am now truly middle aged and happy to eat loganberry jam all summer.

Cool Customers. Hot dogs.

We dream of air conditioning.
It is baking hot, especially next to the oven where the baked potatoes are...baked.
Strange, I know, people are actually ordering jacket spuds.
And soup.
In a heatwave. Although mostly they're eating salads and sandwiches.

Lots of cold drinks accompany visitors to their seats in the garden. The dogs they bring with them stop to drink warm water from the bowl outside and then collapse in the shade under a table.

We have ice cream, but not enough to get us through to our next delivery on Thursday so I'm going to ask if I may pick up a few boxes from the dairy this morning.

This will allow me to spend an hour in the car.
With the air conditioning.

Nor any drop to drink

Sarah and David's wedding day dawned and it was oh-so-wet after a week of intense heat.
And we ferried the stuff to set tables in the marquee in the pouring rain.
Some of us in wellies.
Some of us in raincoats.
With the hoods up.
We set up the cheese tower with rain beating down. We laid out china tea cups, saucers, tea plates, pastry forks, in the pouring rain. We prepared the Pimms in the pouring rain.

The guests were served ice cream cornets after the ceremony. They were meant to eat them standing outside the church, chatting in the sunshine while photos were taken but the thunder and lighting rather scuppered that.
Instead they were served inside the Church porch and ate them in glorious baroque surroundings.
The seventy guests arrived in the marquee under umbrellas.
The bride and groom made the short journey in a vintage car and then trekked across the grass into the marquee, under umbrellas.
Then at about 4 o'clock the sun came out.
The sides came off the marquee.
The photographer lured the guests outside for some shots in the sunshine.
It was as it was meant to be.

Berry inconvenient.

It's a big weekend.
The marquee is up.
The bride and groom (and friends) are coming to decorate it today in readiness for their Afternoon Tea reception tomorrow afternoon.
Fingers crossed for good weather although the marquee is huge so the guests may not notice any rain.

We had a storm overnight and more are threatened during the heatwave.

Our other customers will probably be inside, struggling with the temperature in the conservatory.

One issue.
Strawberries.
The farm in Witley where we get all our strawberries and raspberries are "between varieties". The first ripened quickly and all came at once. The second variety is taking its time.
I am serving strawberries at the wedding and at a party on Sunday.
Hmmm.

Elementary Entry

Today we finished the last page of the Visitors' Book.
Someone wrote in the final box: "Excellent" then a / then what looks like "Canada".

Excellent/Canada?

Great/Britain?

Under the weather

I find the heat exhausting. And it's hotter inside the tea room than it is outside. It's ridiculously hot in the conservatory which means no one can sit in there.
So we do a lot more walking.
Which makes us even more tired.

Earlier on this week we had a seriously showery day.
The sort of day for which we keep an umbrella stand with a few umbrellas standing in it - so that people can borrow a brolly if they're caught without one.
An Australian couple, who'd just had lunch, started to panic when they saw that their prized umbrella  had vanished from the stand. It was an expensive one, they told me, a large one, an Aston Martin one no less. They were concerned it had been stolen.
In fact it had been taken by a couple for their walk to the visitors' centre in the rain. They had asked if they could borrow one. They promised they would leave it at the centre and one of the lovely English Heritage staff would return it to us the next day. As usual.
But instead of taking one of ours they happened to choose the jolly expensive, large, Aston Martin one. Well, wouldn't you?
I called the centre.
It had just been handed in, wet but undamaged.
The Aussies set off quickly for their reunion.

Good Gourd

Thursday was a lovely but strange day typified by a high tea order.
With our high tea comes a choice of sandwich. One lady scanned the menu and asked for hers to be made with cucumber and cream cheese.
When we were clearing her table we found most of the cucumber on the side of her tea plate so were concerned she hadn't liked the sandwich.
"Oh, it's ok," she said, "I just don't eat cucumber."

And by the way, Maureen is as lovely as I'd hoped.  

She lived up to her voice.

Mo - tivated

I am looking forward to meeting Maureen.
Maureen has the most amazing voice - it's lovely, deep, rich and Welsh-accented. She sounds as if she always has a smile on her face. She has a gorgeous laugh. I have an image in my mind of what she might look like.
We've been speaking and emailing for weeks about her group's visit today. There are 25 of them coming from the Cynon Valley, arriving for coffee, then a tour of the Court and Church and Crypt and back to us for lunch.
The day has dawned. It's beautifully sunny.
I hope she smiles throughout.

I'm in early to make biscuits to go with their coffee.

Compare and Contrast

Back to what passes for normal at the tea rooms today after my weekend foray into the world of compering. Upton Food and Beer Festival was the venue for a  WotsCooking demonstration kitchen, and I watched and commented on ten very different chefs creating more than twenty very different dishes VERY quickly.
I learned the following:
1. That compering can be fun.
2. That compering can be hard, or indeed easy, depending upon the chef and the audience.
3. That we should all be using rape seed oil because it's really versatile, cooks stuff well and is produced in this country.
4. That towers of food look really great.

I have decided to put the "towers of food" idea to the test in my own home.
Not because I want my creations to look like they've been produced in a restaurant by a chef with two rosettes or a star.
It's because I think this will force my children to eat with a knife and a fork.
Or rather with the fork used as a fork instead of as a spoon.
My constant refrain at mealtimes is "THIS IS A KNIFE AND FORK MEAL" which means they turn their fork over for a few seconds.
I take full responsibility for their table manners.
Largely because I haven't yet found anyone else to blame.

Tea rooms visitors usually do use their cutlery correctly so the "tower" policy will not yet be introduced.